"Minister's Prayer Book" ed. John W. Doberstein. Short Review


I have used this prayer book since 1988. At that time I was a bi-vocational minister in a little Florida congregation while a Sergeant on Active Duty in the U.S. Air Force. I have continued to use it regularly through the years, and even now as a Presbyterian minister. I own two copies, and have used them so much that the bindings of both are broken and tattered, and the pages are worn and marked up.

The volume is helpful on many fronts. There is a set of suggested orders for morning, noon and evening prayers. Also, Doberstein has included material from Luther's morning and evening prayer, as well as Luther's "A Simple Guide to Prayer" given to his barber. The editor has further mapped out a regular order of prayer for each day of the week. The middle section of the prayer book includes two years of Scripture lessons along with Collects or prayers, all of which follow the liturgical calendar. The largest portion of the volume is given over to "Meditations for Ministers," which encompasses readings from across the ecclesiastical spectrum that are, for the most part encouraging, instructive and devotional.

Though the manual is no longer in print, nevertheless I highly recommend it for all of my fellow ministers. The value of shaping their day in prayer is essential to their well-being and to their ministry. Though it has a hint of a Lutheran flavor, it still will be useful for all.

You should still be able to purchase a copy here: "Minister's Prayer Book"

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

“The Shift” - 2023 Movie. A Review

Image
  What do you get when you cross a dark dystopian storyline with sci-fi, alternative dimensions, theological and philosophical questions, and the biblical book of Job? You get The Shift , written and directed by Brock Heasley, produced by Ken Carpenter, and distributed by Angel Studios. This roughly one hour and 45 minute tale swirls around Kevin (Kristoffer Polaha) as he moves from one realm of life, with it’s happiness and heartbreak, to another dimension that is a dismal existence clearly governed by The Benefactor (masterfully played by Neal McDonough). A viewer will be asking questions all the way through, and picking up clues and answers that pull the story together bit-by-bit. The story bumps up against an infinite set of alternative possibilities, of time, space, and versions of one’s self that will likely stoke a viewer’s imagination. But the heart of the narrative - besides love, grief, loss, trust/distrust - is around the place of evil, specifically, personal or human evil.
Read more

"On Getting Out of Bed" by Alan Noble. A Review

Image
  When it comes to family members or friends going through a significant mental crisis, or suffering, we often can feel like we’re fumbling about to help them. Sometimes, we can become like Job’s friends, whom he had to call “miserable comforters” (Job 16:2). But very recently Alan Noble, assistant professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee Oklahoma, and cofounder and editor-in-chief of “Christ and Pop Culture” penned a deeply beautiful 120-page hardback that addresses mental affliction. “On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living” is written for those who struggle with mental affliction, but also pastors, teachers, parents, and loved ones, to “help them understand their loved one’s suffering. It is for anyone who ever struggles to get out of bed” (3). I finished this book earlier this week, and kept finding myself saying, “Finally! Someone gets it!” Eight chapters fill up this handy manual. They run through several subjects, like not sounding like Job’s f
Read more

Community?

Image
  (This is from my letter to my congregation I sent out today, 30 August 2023) As one of my elders was leading us through Carl Trueman’s Strange New World in our adult class , I appreciated Trueman’s emphasis on community. And our discussions, especially the last two Sundays, were very fruitful as we thought out loud together about this subject. Therefore, I thought I would share something from David Brooks, an Op-ed columnist that leans into this discussion.   Brooks published a book in 2019 titled, “The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life”. In that work he was taking a gentle punch at destructive trends he has been seeing, and giving some helpful correctives. And so, he notes that “Individualism, taken too far, leads to tribalism” (34). He then shows how the loneliness and spiritual emptiness of individualism taken too far have become more prevalent in our time and the ways that they lead to very dark social consequences. These darker social consequences foster the need t
Read more